Nos7algiK

Everything is just happening or just "being". There is no other in comparison to this being so it always is what is is, but removing the "it" from that phrase. The irony is the idea of choice comes full circle. The less conscious your perceive to be, the more conscious you will be of your choices. The more conscious you become, the less conscious you become of choice because you surrender to the flow state of reality. Instead of establishing free will through awareness it's more as if we "free our will" or establish liberation from the cycle of perceived choices and live in a permanent state of contentment or "being"ness.

"Unless your being is touched and transformed, knowledge is ignorance and more dangerous than ordinary ignorance -- because an ordinary ignorant person knows that he is ignorant, and a philosopher thinks that he knows. And once you become addicted to knowledge you will think your knowledge is knowing. Of course, you know too much, but deep down nothing has been known, nothing has changed; you have not evolved to a higher plane of being. Real knowledge consists in attaining higher levels of being, higher planes of being -- not more knowledge, but more being. To be more, not to know more, is the real way." ~Osho

The word "alone" is a combination of the words "all one".

Reaching enlightenment isn't necessary and there is nothing wrong with feeling comfortable with one's own religious beliefs. Also, if someone was to peruse the path. A great way to "find yourself" is to experience "that which we are not" in order to overcome that paradigm of belief using direct experience. Hopefully using said experience to catalyze an awakening. Though seeing "that which we are not" is just a step that will circumvent itself showing us we were always that as well all along. You said it yourself. VVV

Created in God's IMAGEination is a better translation in my opinion. Though "in" would imply relation to "other" which doesn't truly exist. Also, we shouldn't criticize others and how their wish to perceive God. In the grand scheme of things, they are not wrong, nor are they absolutely correct.

?❤️

Well said! ?

Pierre Huyhges’s Exomind statue at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. Source

Realization that life/death are just imaginary concepts within you. They are not True for the very nature of the self is immortality. This realization comes from unrealizing our self-limiting beliefs. To believe we are human, a soul, some type of light being, a resurrection of some deity, or any other form is limiting compared to our infinite nature. But, just believing you are immortal without trying understanding it from a holistic perspective would be delusion. "I have heard that the one who knows how to live can wander through the land without encountering the rhinoceros or the tiger. He passes the battlefield without being struck by weapons. In him, the rhinoceros finds no opening for its horn. The tiger finds no opening for its claws. The soldiers find no opening for their blades. Why is that so? Death has no place in him." [Tao Te Ching chapter 50] "'Never was there a time when you did not exist. Never will there come a time when you cease to be." ~Juliet Carter - The Worldbringer

Leo created a new channel for clips cutting down his longer videos into short digestible points not too long ago: Actualized Clips

When it comes to comedy, express yourself in a way that you personally find funny without much thought on how whoever may witness it could react. Outside of being overtly offensive I suppose. The more you allow yourself this expression, the more your skill in comedy will be honed. Find comfort in yourself. Generally speaking we are not as awkward as we perceive ourselves to be when we are in our head. We usually become awkward when we focus too much on how to be or what to say. When it comes to being exciting again this should be a natural expression. It's very easily to fall into the trap of excitability which can lead to mania which is generally off-putting to many people. Being yourself is important, but being comfortable with yourself is even more.

If everyone did this work then you would lack the mirrors of what you wish not to be in order go help guide you closer to your own self. "I'm not this, I'm not that." How many times have you bettered yourself using another as an example of what not to do?

“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.” ― Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Allowing yourself to be loved by others will raise your capacity to love yourself with awareness of this. Increasing your capacity to love yourself will allow you to love others more purely. Loving others more purely will raise the capacity of love others give to you. Thus the cycle continues on itself.

I wouldn't cling to Leo's words on relationships too much. There is some wisdom to be had in them, but at the same time he was very big into pick-up which I believe creates a biased in his advice. If you are happy now, then there is really no reason to intentionally destroy what you have just because you have a fear of the unknown. Rather, missing out on something that you haven't experienced yet. There is a good chance you would highly regret doing anything to harm your relationship just because you want to try other girls out for lack of a better term. Even if it did give you temporary pleasure eventually down the road you would most likely find any lack of meaning in what you did. Anther thing is, you really need to stop thinking about it. Even the thoughts alone could potentially harm your relationship due to how it will warp your own view on what you have. You may look for reasons to see flaws where there is none to justify your desire to try others out. You are still young and you have someone that loves you sincerely. Cherish both of those and allow your relationship to naturally continue to blossom or it could even end one day. Either way just allow whatever happens to happen. Don't think too much about those thoughts and it's not unnatural to have them, specially considering the situation of her being your only partner so far. But, our thoughts do not define us.

All of that is very lovely, thank you for sharing.

It's unwise to assume what you believe other people perceive. Not only unwise, but also condescending. You talked about the mods getting involved on such a topic. But, none of us here could truly analyze what is going on in OPs reality. It's not for us to make grand statements or assumptions about what could be, unless OP was directly asking for help. We need to give what they say the benefit of the doubt. You talk about giving non-dual statements as advice and how it should be thought about more critically before stating this to someone who may have an more serious problem. But, if this is your stance you are one the wrong forum. 90% of what people say is literally "how non-dual can I make my comment" and then in turn becomes a passive aggressive contest of who can say the most non-dual comment. I do believe having any type of hallucination can be something more concerning, but stating that could become a double-edge blade to whom you are trying to inform. What once someone thought was mysterious or somewhat interesting about their life. Now, someone stated it could be concern for a mental health issue. The person latches on to this concept and now creates their own delusions forcing a problem out of something that there was no issue, back to my statement on how we perceive these phenomena is the key in most cases. The issue, in this case, isn't your concern itself. But, rather your wording towards it. Though, I can't tell you how to talk to others. You imply in your first comment the mods are feeding into OPs delusions. Which in the grade scheme of things, we are all doing that consistently as we interact with each other. But, on the other hand personal relativity that differs from my own doesn't mean they are deluded in comparison to my own sanity. There are others on this forum that are directly stating some serious shit that most defiantly could cause future harm to them, because that is what they told us. Over someone who's visual perception of reality has been slightly altered that doesn't seemed to stressed about it. But, I will agree with you I have no idea why the mods feed into those delusions though I do not have the solution for such a thing nor is it for me to tell the mods or Leo what to do with people such as that. I wish the best for anyone who has cause for concern and hopefully they have a real support system that can help them.

But, it's not for you to conflate that down to mental illness or anything concerning. There are a few people in my personal life that have sensory hallucinations that only grew in effect as they aged. But, they nor I would ever call them mentally ill for it. Now if OP was asking for help or seemed panicked due to the nature of the visuals. Then it would be a different story. But, from everything I have seen they are doing nothing more than asking questions about them or stating their own experiences. But, I will agree with you there are some things said that do seem cause for concern by some members. Specially when it seems like every other post by them revolves around grand delusions or existential dread, wanting to escape physical reality. The forum can most defiantly be an echo chamber for one's own validation and in turn also dismiss any idea that may free them from their own warped paradigm.

Seems a bit judgmental to dismiss other's visual/auditory phenomena as just mental illness. I wouldn't say much of it is cause for concern unless someone is hearing voice, or more so hearing voicing and making decisions based on these perceived voices. Taking psychedelics or even getting into meditative states shows there are many layers to our relative perception of reality that we can become aware of. Though, regardless of what someone is or can perceive. Our beliefs on said perceptions our what determines if it's a healthy or toxic relationship with the phenomena. A very common one is tinnitus, as others have mentioned in this thread. People are not mentally ill for having, or being aware of these sounds. ( I do feel like everyone has this to some degree it's just a matter of being aware of it or not). But, some people aren't bothered by tinnitus and some people suffer from crippling anxiety/depression because they can't unhear it.

"Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations" ~Tao Te Ching Ching Chapter: 1

This is still one of the greatest mysteries to me. I would label it as "consciousness" but I could label anything with that. I personally became aware of this after I started to trip, but now I can always see it. It seems alive and intelligent. It seems to exist between the spaces of physical reality. It seems completely aware of me and yet seems somewhat attached to me. Though, I do understand it has to be me since there is no separation between myself and it. My original theory on it was it's literally what the backdrop of reality is perceived on, like a screen that's producing the illusion. But, after further investigation I try not to hold too many beliefs like that. Though, I would like to hear other's experiences, ideas, or possibly explanations given just to have food for thought. It's shape is much like octopus tentacles that have no beginning or ending, fractals.